The Manifold's All Aussie Outback Adventure: The first 4 days!

Apologies for the delay in my next post! It has been an interesting couple of days to say the least.

We finally got away last Friday 6th July at about 3pm - only 5 hours later than we had hoped, yet the list of chores to be done got bigger and bigger and to cap it off we found a significant leak in an old pipe outside the house (of course it was a galv pipe and very rusted.) Fortunately the groundsmen were on hand and took care of this for us.

The trip to Chinchilla was uneventful and pretty easy going. There was rain on the horizon and the open spaces were a welcome sight. We arrived at "Glenoch"at 7pm in the dark to be greeted by Roger and Tam. A fantastic meal of osso bucco prepared by Roger and off to bed ready for an early start.

The long day to Gundoo (10+ hours) began at 8.30am after a consult by Lucie on one of Rogers horses. The damage to the roads from Roma to Blackhall was significant and slowed progress down. That said the Prado is travelling beautifully and given the load on board and in the trailer, it really is doing a great job.

The last leg from Blackall to (Emmet - Yaraka) Gundoo which was 180km of dirt at dusk was entertaining! As Bella said, "I have seen more emu's and kangaroos than I have ever seen in my life". The wildlife (kangaroos, pigs, emu's, plain turkey's) along with sheep and cattle all over the road driving into the sun made for interesting times. We only collected 2 kangaroos along the way and thankfully there was no major damage to the car.

We arrived at the Moody's property "Gundoo" at 7.45pm after a long day. It was great to finally get out of the car with the knowledge that there was no driving the next day. To their credit, the girls were fantastic through out the day and we only had "How much longer" a few times!!

On Sunday Lucie and I headed out with Paul Moody to muster sheep and lambs. It was fantastic to be on horse back again and the morning spent out mustering was very relaxing apart from the sore backside. The big skies and open country are fantastic and the sense of freedom is appreciated.

Looking at the photos above, you will notice the cloud building. Yesterday we woke to dark skies and it looked like rain. It's the dry season and we don't get rain in July! If only this was the case. It started to rain at about 10am at Gundoo and by 11am, we decided it was time to move just in case the rain kept coming. That it did and the 80 km of black dirt and clay became a great skid pan. I have to say that looking in the side mirrors of the Prado and seeing the trailer sliding side to side at 45 degrees to the car was not much fun. The problem was that the mud guards on the trailer were totally blocked with clay and so the wheels could not clear. The resultant effect was that the tyres were like slicks.

Below are some photos of the trailer as we got back on to the bitumen. While I was able to pull much of the clay and mud off the car and trailer by hand, the problem was that the clay was still lodged inside the wheels on the car. The result - wheel balances and alignments that were so far out that the whole car shook for the next 100 kms into Longreach.

Don't worry David and Susan - the trailer does not look like this now thanks to the Suffren's who very kindly looked after us in Longreach and let us use their high pressure water blaster and put us up for the night. Just for the record - Longreach had 56mm of rain in the last 24 hours! So much for the dry season......

Today Tuesday 10th July we have had a great day in Longreach despite the continued rain. This morning we headed to the Longreach School of Distance Education (LSODE) to watch on line lessons. Annabel asked later - "Where was the classroom?" It really is a fantastic service to the outback community and made so much better now for students with advancements in technology to allow video links and on line lessons that are so interactive.

From the LSODE we headed to the Qantas Museum and the girls had the opportunity to go on board a 747 as shown below and also the first Qantas Boeing 707. Dad - the girls kept on saying Pop Pop would love this place.